TIFF’s Canada First program offers recognition to talented filmmakers who have leapt financial and conceptual hurdles to create appealing debut features. The six directors this year will be surprising Toronto audiences and critics with a diverse crop of first films.

The Guild of Canadian Film Composers may have been operating since 1980, but it still hasn’t made a point. In fact, the Canadian Audio-Visual Certification Office of the Department of Canadian Heritage won’t give a producer even half a point for employing a local composer. It’s something that Marvin Dolgay, the guild’s president, and Maria Topalovich, its executive director, would like to see change in the near future. After all, it can affect whether a Canadian composer is employed – or not.